A French biotechnology company has produced a vaccine that is effective in decreasing deaths in people with some lung cancers by 41%.
Ose Immunotherapeutics’ Tedopi vaccine is the most advanced therapeutic cancer vaccine in clinical development. The company said in a statement Monday that it had demonstrated a 41% reduction of the risk of death for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in a Phase III trial.
A Phase III clinical trial is the last step before a drug can be marketed, meaning the vaccine could become available soon to the public.
The vaccine was administered to 139 patients in nine European countries and the United States who had advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC or adenocarcinoma), the most common type of lung cancer, and all had shown resistance to other treatments. The other 80 patients who took part in the study received chemotherapy.
Results showed that the vaccine significantly improved overall survival in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) compared to chemotherapy, with Phase III data published in Annals of Oncology.
“Tedopi is the first cancer vaccine to demonstrate positive results on survival in a randomised Phase III trial in advanced and metastatic NSCLC cancer patients in third line. A significant reduction of the risk of death by 41% was achieved with a better safety profile and a maintained quality of life,” said Professor Benjamin Besse from the Gustave Roussy Institute, the study’s lead author, in a statement.
POSITIVE RESULTS
The overall survival rate at one year with Tedopi was 44.4% versus 27.5% with chemotherapy. The cancer vaccine offered an overall survival of 11.1 months compared to 7.5 months for standard of care. Additionally, post progression survival was found to be significantly greater in length for Tedopi: 7.7 months compared to 4.6 months for chemotherapy.
Tedopi is a therapeutic cancer vaccine, not a preventive measure. Therapeutic cancer vaccines aim to train the immune system to specifically recognise and destroy tumour cells.
The Covid pandemic accelerated research into the field of immunotherapy, acceellerating the production of vaccines, specifically mRNA vaccines.
“This Phase Three positive monotherapy data and moreover the recently announced positive Phase One and Two results using other personalised cancer vaccines in combination to treat resected melanoma or pancreatic cancer patients, highlight the promise of this new therapeutic class of vaccines,” said Nicolas Poirier, Chief Executive Officer of OSE Immunotherapeutics.
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Photo credit: CDC, Unsplash